The Beasts
by Fudgyokra
Summary: What you don't know really can kill you. Mordecai and Rigby find that out the hard way. Morby, human AU.
1. In the Beginning

**The Beasts**

**A/N: **It's been a super long time since I've done an actual chapter story. (Seriously. I only ever wrote one, and it was three years ago.) As someone who primarily deals with oneshots, this is kind of a game-changer, lol. It's only three chapters long, but I suppose that still counts!

* * *

Chapter One: In the Beginning

Around him, everything was silent, save for the occasional sound of the house settling and the distant chirping of birds outside. He sat at the dining room table facing the window, with three-quarters of a mug of black coffee in his hand and a relaxed smile on his face. The clock on the microwave displayed 5:02 a.m. in bright green numbers.

Though the sky outside was bone gray and the air was a bit foggy, Skips preferred this time of day because it meant he got four hours of peace before Mordecai, Rigby, and Benson got together and started the usual chaos. Pops woke up at seven, but the old-fashioned man didn't do much in the way of talking until work actually started, so this never bothered Skips. It was the perfect amount of alone time to start his morning. Nice and quiet.

He took a sip of his coffee and was just poised to sigh contentedly when a loud thud followed by a yelp erupted from somewhere upstairs. The mug immediately connected with the table again as he rose from his seat. "That sounded like Rigby," he said aloud, mentally scaling through all possible scenarios and methods of help. This process stopped dead in its tracks, however, when he heard someone stomping down the stairs.

Seconds later, Mordecai turned into the kitchen, and Skips blinked a few times at the disheveled sight of him. He'd gathered what he could of his hair into a rubber band and let the rest feather about his head messily. His eyes were cloudy and drooping, but his brows were poised above them like daggers aimed toward the bridge of his nose, and his mouth was curled into a frown. Oddly enough, he was already dressed, but his skinny jeans were chalk-stained and his shirt was tugged a little to the side.

It took Skips a second to realize that those were the clothes he'd been wearing yesterday.

"Mordecai," he said evenly, watching the man's face change once he'd realized someone else was in the room.

"Oh! Skips, uh, hey."

"Did you even go to sleep last night?" There was a beat of silence. Skips pretended not to see the befuddled look Mordecai gave the microwave clock and took that as a no. "What was that sound I heard?"

Again, the young man's face contorted to anger. "Ugh, nothing. I was just—Rigby was being—"

The stairs suddenly creaked with someone's weight, and by the way Mordecai immediately shut up, Skips could tell who was descending.

The other trouble-maker arrived in much the same manner that his friend had: unkempt, irritated, and still dressed in yesterday's outfit, which served as a testament to their all-nighter. There was something different about Rigby, though. Instead of looking angry, he looked more disappointed. With what, Skips couldn't say.

"What the…?" He blinked quizzically at Skips. "Why're you up so early?"

"I'm always up at this hour."

"Really?" Rigby glanced at Mordecai, then pretended not to have seen him as he grabbed a box of cereal from the pantry. "I never knew that." His voice was tight and higher than normal, which could only mean that he and Mordecai had been fighting—that much was obvious, but Skips still couldn't put a finger on why the air was so tense. Their usual spats took no time off, as they were constantly at each other's throats with their insults, typically childish in nature and thus fading away quickly. There was no time for tenseness. The longest fight Skips could remember had involved blond hair dye and an unusually sullen Rigby, but this was different, somehow.

The older man finally found his voice and replied, "Yeah… It's just something I like to do."

"You're not tired?"

"Nope. I'm very well-rested."

Mordecai, who'd apparently grown sick of being ignored, crossed his arms and shifted his weight onto one leg. "Tch, must be nice to feel well-rested at five in the morning." His eyes were pointedly fixed in a glare at his best friend.

Before Skips could question this, Rigby had begun his retaliation, slamming the cereal box down with enthusiasm as if he'd been waiting for the other to say something the entire time. "Gee, I wouldn't know, 'cause _someone _decided to complain all night about how his girlfriend dumped him!"

"You brought it up!"

"Nuh-uh! I said one thing!"

"About her!"

"Not about _that!_"

"It was totally about that! And then you—"

Rigby's eyes suddenly sharpened. "Don't you _dare_ say it."

"See, you're ashamed of it, aren't you?" Mordecai crossed the kitchen to approach Rigby, and upon slowly unfolding his arms, he leaned down and poked him in the chest. "Because you knew it was a dick move."

Rigby threw his hands up. "You let me!"

"What? No I didn't! I—"

"Uh-huh, you're the one who should be ashamed!"

Mordecai all but yelled, "_You're_ the one who kissed _me!_"

At that moment, silence returned to the house. Skips could even hear the birds chirping again. His coffee was probably lukewarm by this point, but that didn't concern him at the moment, because all he could think about was what Mordecai had just said.

The duo before him held their stare for what seemed like forever, with Mordecai slowly realizing what he'd done and Rigby simply standing there with balled fists, gritting his teeth. Before too long, the latter turned and stalked away without a single word.

Mordecai's boiling blood seemed to cool in an instant. His shoulders drooped, and his face softened. When he looked at Skips, the man's expression was unreadable. He, too, exited the room, leaving Mordecai behind with a half-empty cup of coffee and a tight knot of guilt in his chest.


	2. Manifestation

Chapter Two: Manifestation

Part One: The Beast of Guilt

They didn't speak to one another all day. At first, Mordecai tried to work things out, but when his companion proved to be stubborn, he gave up and broke away to do work on his own. If Benson or anyone else noticed, they made no comment.

Skips, however, kept watch. He ran into Mordecai first, while the man was silently raking leaves by the park's entrance. Periodically, he reached up to rub the back of his neck.

"Hey Mordecai," he began, not even flinching when the man in question jerked at the sound of his voice.

"God, you scared me." Mordecai rubbed his neck again. "Sorry, Skips. I really am."

"It's fine. What's the matter?" He asked, even though he already knew. As a matter of fact, he could already see it in the younger employee's eyes—dull blue wrought with regret.

"Ugh. You heard us this morning." Mordecai looked down at the pile of leaves at his feet but made no move to return to his duty. "I feel bad. It was a…"

"Mistake?" Skips asked, eyeing the way Mordecai's shoulders tensed the moment he said the word.

It took a split second too long for him to grit out a "Yeah." He faked a smile and shook his head. "Haha, no big deal, right? But Rigby won't even look at me."

For a second, a flash of dark green crept into his eyes, and Skips cursed internally. "Listen, Mordecai, you guys are close. If I were you, I'd try my hardest to get him to talk."

Mordecai threw his rake down and groaned. "He's too damn stubborn. I've tried to apologize already."

The flash was back, and this time it stuck for a longer period of time, curling in his pupils like smoke. Skips counted five seconds before it disappeared.

_This is very bad,_ he thought. He didn't want to believe that the beasts would come, but, like he learned with stress, they always did sooner or later. Still, he clung to a shred of hope. "I'm serious. Go try again."

"Why should I?" Mordecai sounded less irritated and more beseeching, as though he honestly wanted the older man to give him a good enough answer.

"Because if you don't, guilt will overcome you."

Skips remembered exactly what the beast of guilt looked like, too—like the swirling monster of stress, only a deep forest green with a touch like acid and a smell like damp grass. He shuddered at the thought. "It will eat away at you. Trust me, you don't want that to happen."

Mordecai's pupils dilated. "Skips, I messed up." They turned from black to gray. "It was totally my fault this time, but he's being a jerk." Slowly, they faded into the recognizable hue of a guilty conscience, and Skips reached out to touch his shoulder.

"He'll forgive you eventually. He's your friend."

"Yeah." Mordecai rubbed his neck, and when he dragged his hand away this time, it was smudged the color of the trees around them.

"He's my friend, and I pissed him off so much he won't listen to a word I say."

Skips clenched his jaw. "Morde—" he couldn't even get the name out before the man in question began coughing into his hands violently. Something dark oozed through his fingers, and Skips saw the moment fear dawned on him.

"Skips, help!"

"I can't!" The substance trickled from the corners of the man's mouth, draining onto the ground and forming the foul monster that only one thing could stop. "You have to kill it yourself."

"But how?"

Skips backed away, looking determined. "We have to go get Rigby."

The ooze shot up from the ground and coiled into a snake-like form beside them, roaring in such a way that it almost sounded like a pained sob.

"Why him?" Mordecai asked frantically, just before he wiped his mouth in disgust. "How could he possibly make this any better?"

"Just come with me." Skips grabbed the other's arm and yanked him into motion just before the beast rammed its head on the ground where he'd been standing. "And move fast!"

The two sped away in their mission to find Rigby, leaving the great beast of Mordecai's guilt behind in its wailing anguish.

* * *

Part Two: The Beast of Jealousy

By the time they reached Rigby, his own inner demon was blatant—and moments away from manifesting. The short brunette was furiously scrubbing the same three bricks on the snack bar's outer wall and grumbling to himself all the while. When they'd made it within earshot, they caught the tail end of some complaint. "—thinks she's so much more important than me." He dunked the sponge he held into a bucket of soapy water in preparation for his attack on the already-wet part of the wall. "It's not like I did anything that bad."

Mordecai grimaced at his friend's words. "Rigby!" he called, throwing his hand toward him as though that would solve something.

When Rigby faced them, Skips put his arm out to stop Mordecai from progressing any further. "Careful. He's got one, too," he explained somberly.

"_What?_"

Without warning, Skips balled a fist in the front of Rigby's t-shirt, ignoring the startled interjection he got in response. Sure enough, the evidence was all over him; on his stomach, long burgundy swirls were forming, looking almost like intricate tattoos—but they were moving. Not only that, but quickly fanning outward.

Rigby pushed Skips's hand away. There wasn't much strength behind it, but the older man let go, anyway. "You spent all the time hanging with him?" Rigby asked, his tone accusing. "You didn't even try that hard to apologize, dude! You just ditched me for Skips."

"Rigby—"

"Just like you ditched me for Margaret, and for CJ." The red swirls had climbed up to his neck, and Skips grimly recalled images of a vicious, fiery beast he'd met once in his younger years.

Mordecai threw his hands up. "You're just jealous, man!"

Rigby retaliated in a heartbeat. "I am _not_ jealous!"

Just then, he lost his balance, knocked backward onto the ground by the raging cloud that erupted from his chest and took shape in the air.

Mordecai and Rigby cried out and scurried away from it. The former looked at Skips with panicked eyes. "What do we do?"

"You have to—" His advice was cut short by a loud roar from behind them. Rigby's face lost all color.

"There's another one?"

They spun around to find that Guilt was barreling straight toward Mordecai, who sucked in a breath, only to expel it in another frantic call for help.

"The truth!" Skips yelled. "You have to tell the truth!"


	3. With Truth as Your Sword

Chapter Three: With Truth as Your Sword

Around them, the air swirled, throwing debris above their heads as the monsters growled and poised to strike. A moment later, they realized that the rest of the park's inhabitants had been alerted to the sounds and were running toward them.

Mordecai looked at Rigby, who all but growled, "No way! I'm not saying a thing!"

"What?" The taller man's brows shot up. "Dude, we're gonna die!"

Rigby pushed himself off the ground to face the burgundy beast with determination. He looked a little banged up already, with a dirty scrape on one cheek and grass-stained elbows. Mordecai didn't want to see him hurt himself further, but the warning he issued was ignored.

"I'll just hit it!"

"With _what?_"

In answer, Rigby aimed a punch at the beast, which did nothing more than prompt it to whip him aside with its tail.

Things had quickly become tyrannical, they realized. There was suddenly a torrent of trash and leaves that assaulted them at practically every turn, and the air churned. Mordecai noticed that the sky was bleak, just like it had been that morning: bone gray and hazy with fog. He didn't really believe in premonitions, but it was a suitable backdrop for the beasts' havoc.

He looked desperately at Rigby, whose eyes were wide and fixed on the gigantic red spears of which his inner turmoil was composed. _Jealousy. _It stabbed at the air once with a claw-like appendage before bringing it down on its former owner. Rigby cried out and managed to launch himself away from the point of impact before he could be struck.

Mordecai's eyes sobered. He played a part in bringing that into the world, along with the smoky green creature beside it, whose hands lashed out dangerously close to his head in the midst of his thoughts.

"_Shit,_" he hissed upon jerking away from the spindly fingers. "The truth is that Rigby is jealous! I tried to help, he just wouldn't let me!"

At that, the guilt beast gurgled in some semblance of a roar and wrapped a hand around Pops, lifting him into the air. His cries for help echoed shrilly through the park.

"That's not—" Skips started to say, only to be cut off by Rigby's frantic defense to his companion's accusation.

"I am not jealous!" He smacked Mordecai in the shoulder.

Jealousy reared its head then, curling its hands around Skips and abducting him from the grass just as Guilt had done to Pops.

"You're making them angry!" Skips said, trying to wrestle his way out of the creature's grip and ultimately failing. "They're getting stronger."

Mordecai and Rigby stood in the center of the mess, looking up at their captured friends helplessly. "What did we do?" Rigby questioned, voice frantic.

From outside the circle, Benson screamed, "Stop lying, you idiots!"

"I wasn't lying!" they said in unison. Again, Jealousy struck, tossing Skips aside with a shriek. His back collided with a nearby tree, and he slid to the bottom with a grunt.

"Skips!" Mordecai exclaimed. "See," he paused to turn on Rigby, "it's your monstrosity that got angry. You _are_ jealous, I knew it!"

"You can't—" Skips groaned, pushed himself up slowly, and leveled a serious stare at the two of them in sequence. "You have to tell your own truth. Every bit of it."

Above them, Pops wailed, and everyone turned their attention to Guilt, who had the man dangling by the shirt above its dripping teeth. Its row of sharp fangs glinted in the sun, only partially shrouded by its grotesquely stretched-out grin.

Mordecai panicked. "Hurry up, dude! You're gonna get him killed!"

Benson sprinted across the field toward them with eyes aflame. "You two! Forget this stupid argument—whatever it is—and kill these things before they kill us! If you don't—"

"Benson, _please_. Now isn't the time for that, either," Pops all but whimpered from where he hung.

Then, in an instant, he was no longer hanging.

Mordecai's blood ran cold. Someone called Pops's name, but he couldn't tell whose voice it was. It could have even been his own. Beside him, Rigby was stiff, watching the man falling through the air in stunned silence toward Guilt's awaiting jaws.

Then Jealousy's claw shot out and snatched the man before Guilt could snap its teeth shut.

"Rigby!" was all Benson had to holler before the brunette caved.

"Fine! I'm jealous!" For a second, his beast hesitated. It dropped Pops, who quickly scampered toward Benson and clung onto his arm for dear life. With a guttural growl, the beast lunged for Rigby.

The group scattered. A ways away, Skips was still hobbling by the tree he'd struck. "The whole truth!" he reminded them.

Rigby and Mordecai stopped at the fountain benches, pressing their backs flat against them. The former moaned, "In front of everyone?"

"Yes!" Skips said sternly. "Yes, everyone!"

Mordecai squeezed his eyes closed. Almost as if it sensed his fear, Guilt howled in its somber way before it slithered toward him.

Rigby's mouth tightened into a line for only a second. "I'm jealous that Mordecai is always talking about CJ!"

A snarl ripped from Jealousy's throat. With a violent jerk, it rammed itself into Rigby, effectively knocking him back onto the ground. It continued to writhe aimlessly, unable to strike with its claws in its apparent pain.

Taking advantage of its weakness, Rigby kept firing. He remained on hands and knees, not willing to look up. "He acts like he likes her better. Sometimes I feel like he does. I miss hanging out with him all the time, when it was just us." Here, he made himself get to his knees and straighten up. He still refused to make eye contact with anyone. "It's not like I want him to have no other friends or nothin', I just…" His face colored. "Uh…"

Jealousy hit the terrain, its form rippling. Muscle Man and Fives surveyed it curiously, but when it snapped its fangs, they staggered back.

Skips finally entered the circle, a move that made Guilt snarl. "Rigby, quick," he commanded. "What's the last part?"

"That's not important."

"Yes, it is."

Mordecai looked over at his friend. "Dude, it's okay," he said.

"You don't know that."

Guilt took the chance to snake toward Mordecai, rising up until it towered over him. From the ground, Jealousy fluttered weakly.

"Dude," Mordecai repeated urgently. His hands groped behind him on the bench for anything he could use to fight the beast off but found nothing.

"I just wish…" Rigby made a frustrated sound. "I wish you felt like that about me, okay?"

Jealousy's body curled up at that, and, with a shrill cry, it cracked into shards. While Guilt was distracted by the sudden disappearance, Mordecai slipped away from the bench and managed to distance himself from the monster. "Hey!" he called out, recapturing its attention when he was sure he was far enough away. "I've got something to say!"

The green beast unstuck its dripping lips and howled.

"Rigby, I'm sorry I made you feel unimportant. I'm a jerk. Truth is, I think you're way better than CJ. I miss her, like, a lot, but she's no you." He grit his teeth when Guilt straightened up to its impressive height yet again. "I wasn't actually mad that you kissed me." He heard his employees' confused murmurs but didn't falter. "In fact, I kinda liked it. I was just pissed at your timing. But I shouldn't have said it in front of Skips."

Guilt screamed as though it were being physically wounded; Mordecai kept talking, watching his demon crumple and sink back to the ground with every word he said. "Now we have to say it in front of everyone 'cause we were too stubborn to do anything but argue about it. You know what, though? I don't really care about that."

Rigby shot him a startled look, which he missed, as his eyes were locked on Guilt.

The beast put its last bit of strength into a lunge, and when its glinting claws were mere inches from Mordecai's face, he said, in a rush, "I've been waiting for you to kiss me since high school!"

Just like that, Guilt exploded, spattering tar-like substance everywhere.

Mordecai wiped his dirtied cheek with the back of his hand and heaved a sigh of relief. Rigby suddenly burst out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground in a fit of laughter. "Dude, we did it! We totally destroyed 'em!"

The black-haired man grinned impossibly wide. "Haha, yeah we did!"

"Mordecai! Rigby!" Benson, with his hands on his hips, stood over them angrily. They'd come to expect this sort of reaction from him, but that didn't make it any less concerning.

"We know we screwed up, Benson," Mordecai said. "We're sorry."

"If you don't get this cleaned up by one o'clock, guess what?"

"We're fired?" Rigby asked, even though it wasn't really a question.

"Exactly!" Their boss chose that as his line to stalk off with, tailed by the other employees who walked away mumbling among themselves.

The two young men looked at each other and burst into a fresh peal of laughter, only to have it fade away into an awkward stretch of nothingness. Mordecai was on his back in the grass with Rigby on top of him, hands clasped over his shoulders, and suddenly this position no longer seemed like the result of an innocent tackle. Neither of them was sure of what to do.

"Things aren't gonna be weird now, are they?" Rigby asked at length.

"No, man. Of course not." Even though these words were spoken with conviction, Mordecai wasn't positive he meant them.

Rigby looked relieved. "Okay, good. I don't want us to stop being friends 'cause we said all that stuff."

"Yeah." The taller of them cracked a smile. "Can you get off of me, though? You're kinda crushing my ribs."

Rigby clambered off his friend gracelessly and rolled onto his back to lie beside him. He rested his hands on his stomach and stared up at the sky, which had finally stopped toiling and actually started to look a little blue. "So."

"So?"

"You've been wanting to kiss me since high school?"

The sound Mordecai made in response was a cross between a scoff and a nervous laugh. "I mean, it started as, like, curiosity. Then it was like I thought about it all the time and I just figured…" He pursed his lips, then propped himself up on his elbows and sighed. "It turned into a crush, I guess. I thought it'd go away." He shook his hair out to dispel any grass that had collected in it; Rigby noted with a small smile that he'd failed.

"It didn't go away?"

Mordecai looked at him with one eyebrow raised. Before he could even begin to think of what to say to that, he found himself distracted by the rare look of earnestness on his best friend's face. Rigby really didn't have a clue. Finally, Mordecai's expression relaxed back into a lazy grin. "No, I guess it didn't."

At that, Rigby shot to a sitting position. "Ohhhh! You totally have a crush on me!"

"_Dude_, we are way too old to be saying shit like that. I don't have a _crush_ on you."

"You just think I'm hot and want to date me and stuff."

At first Mordecai nearly choked on his spit, but he couldn't stop himself from laughing for the life of him. "Oh my god, Rigby, you idiot."

"Admit it!"

The honest smile that slipped onto his face actually got Rigby to simmer down a bit. They lapsed back into silence for a single striking moment, and in that time frame, Mordecai realized that he was no longer worried about any weirdness between them. There were plenty of weird things in their lives, and their relationship wasn't one of them.

"Okay, fine. Yeah, I do."

"Do what?" Rigby teased. "Admiiiiiiiit it."

"Pshh." The taller male smacked the other in the shoulder, eliciting a whine. "Yeah, I want to 'date you and stuff.' Satisfied?"

"Hmph."

"No?"

"Almost. I want one more thing."

"Is it a kiss?"

"Hey! You're supposed to let me be all mysterious and cool and say it myself! You weren't supposed to ruin my surp…" Before he could finish, he found that his friend's mouth had suddenly become a lot closer to his own than it had been just a couple seconds prior. "…rise…"

Nothing happened for a moment. Rigby realized with a tinge of satisfaction that Mordecai was nervous. His best friend really was a piece of work when it came to romantic dealings. Just before Mordecai could muster the courage, Rigby stopped him. "I know you're still upset about CJ," he said out of the blue.

Mordecai retracted. "What does that have to do with this?"

"C'mon, man, I'm not gonna put this shit on you right after you guys broke up. We're best bros first, right?"

As ridiculously cheesy as it sounded, Mordecai actually thought he felt his heart skip a beat. "Woah, that's actually really cool of you. Thanks."

"Plus I know you're a big baby when it comes to kissing people first."

Instantly, the taller man's moment of thankfulness ended. It was, however, replaced with a comforting sense of familiarity. Everything was mostly back to normal, and it was pretty great, for the time being. He still huffed an, "I am not," under his breath for closure.

Rigby stood up and dusted off his jeans. "Wanna go play some video games?"

"Yeah I do!"

With no other closing words to offer, the duo sped off in search of entertainment, their perfect balanced restored.

Skips, who sat inside at the dining table once more, looked out at the sky through the window and saw them rush past, trying to duck beneath the frame as if he hadn't already caught them. He decided for now, though, that they deserved a good break.

He took a sip of his afternoon tea and hummed contentedly. The park was a weird place sometimes, but he had a feeling that everything would work out just fine.


End file.
